Accountants Complaining About GoodAccountants.com?
GoodAccountants.com has just released its latest version of GA Access 3.0 which now integrates a ‘click to call’ button that allows its website users nationwide to connect with an accountant within seconds to ask a question or book an appointment. The tool has added another dimension to the company’s efforts to convert passive web-surfers into real ‘live’ paying customers for its nationwide network of accountants. “The only complaint we’ve heard so far from some of our members about this new tool is what took us so long to implement this feature,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “It’s an awesome tool and it’s already showing results in terms of connecting business owners who come to our website with accountants who are in our network,” adds Laurent.
What GoodAccountants.com has done is strategically placed a powerful ‘call to action’ right under the noses of their website users which prompts them to reach out and touch an accountant during those moments when they’re most seriously thinking about engaging the services of an accounting professional. “We find that business owners can sometimes be very impulsive particularly after experiencing a bad day that perhaps culminates with them having to write a check to the IRS which they may not have anticipated writing,” says Laurent. “That’s generally the time they’re blaming their accountant for a lack of tax planning and may feel the need to get a second opinion and our ‘click to call’ button is right there in front of them, helping them make that decision to contact one of our guys,” explains Laurent.
GoodAccountants.com is the nation’s largest accountancy referral service dedicated to helping business owners and individual tax payers find the right accounting professional for their business and or personal needs. The company has thousands of accountants nationwide that comprise their network of service providers with whom they match with business owners and individual tax payers that frequent the GoodAccountants.com website. GA Access is a suite of software tools developed by GoodAccountants.com to assist accountants with building their client base primarily with business owners and individual taxpayers that utilize the Internet in their search for local accountants.
By simply logging into GA Access with a unique user name and password, member accountants are able to view and retrieve leads in real time that are assigned to them from GoodAccountants.com’s website. With this new ‘click to call’ feature, website users can now contact the accountant directly without having to go through a customer service representative. The GA Access system captures the name and telephone number of each caller and saves the information within the accountant’s call log allowing a call back to the website user at a time that is convenient for the accountant. GoodAccountants.com also develops a profile page for each of its member accountants which features a photograph of the accountant, travel directions to the accountant’s office, a link to the accountant’s website and even accommodates video presentations that feature the accountant and highlights services and areas of expertise. “We promote our accountants’ profile pages all across the Internet to attract more business for them that is independent of our marketing efforts,” says Laurent. “In most cases, the GoodAccountants.com Profile Page we build for our accountants will rank higher than the accountant’s own website so that when someone types in the accountant’s name at almost any search engine their GoodAccountants.com Profile Page will be the very first result.” explains Laurent. Among the tools that GoodAccountants.com offers its member accountants is “geo-targeting” which aids the company with zoning in on an accountant’s zip code to effectively find audit and tax clients. For more information about GoodAccountants.com and GA Access go here.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Jim Kmetz, CPA Reviews GoodAccountants.com’s Performance Over Three Year Period
Jim Kmetz has been an accountant for the past forty years and maintains a small CPA accounting practice in Willowbrook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. Kmetz became a member of GoodAccountants.com in the fall of 2008 and has maintained his relationship with the company ever since. Over the past three years says Kmetz, he has received numerous referrals from GoodAccountants.com of which many have turned into some of his best clients. “The first referral they set me up with did not work out because of a personality clash between myself and the business owner which became evident during the interview that it wasn’t going to work out,” says Kmetz. “But I stuck with GoodAccountants and over the past three years they have provided me with approximately thirty clients, all quality clients with nice sized businesses,” explains Kmetz.
Among the clients GoodAccountants.com has referred to Kmetz has been a dentist with annual billings of approximately $2,500 to $3,000. Another is an owner of a Federal Express mailbox store also with recurring annual billings at between $2,500 and $3,000. Another client referred to Kmetz by GoodAccountants is a long distance trucker and a fourth an insurance investigator both with recurring annualized billings at between $2,500 and $3,000. “All the clients they have referred to me have been high quality small businesses along with about ten tax return clients,” adds Kmetz.
What Kmetz has to say about other accountants who do not believe in the value of the Internet as a source for obtaining quality clients is they are probably not serious about growing their practice. The trends are clear for anyone who has been an accounting practitioner for any length of time says Kmetz, that fewer and fewer clients are coming from the phone book. “Over the last few years I don’t believe I’ve gotten one referral through the phone book,” say Kmetz. “Today, everybody is on the Internet,” he adds.
Kmetz says he immediately abandoned his plans to purchase a small accounting practice when he was recently approached by GoodAccountants.com, Senior Business Consultant, Al Chisolm to upgrade his marketing program to that of a Designated Service Provider which requires a $25,000 investment. His rationale was the small accounting practice which was valued at $60,000 would cost him $90,000 whereas GoodAccountant’s DSP marketing program automatically guaranteed him $75,000 in billing for only a $25,000 investment. “The decision to go with GoodAccountants.com over purchasing the small accounting practice I was contemplating was a no brainer since they’ve already proven to me that they can deliver the clients,” says Kmetz.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Hau & Associates Lands $15 Million Company and $50,000 In Annualized Billings
Dan Hau is the founder and managing partner of Hau & Associates, S.C., a four partner, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based, accounting firm comprised of twenty-five accounting professionals. The firm is among an emerging group of accounting practices across the country that exclusively utilize the Internet and cloud computing to grow their client base. A member of GoodAccountants.com since May 2010, Hau & Associates was first approached by Stephen Mack, a senior business consultant with GoodAccountants to meet with Homestead Independence Inc., a $7 million medical products company based in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Deeply frustrated with the lack of QuickBooks competency of the accounting firm they had been using Homestead Independence turned to GoodAccountants.com to find a new accounting firm for them. “The billing for Homestead was $30,000 and although Hau’s group was one of the company’s top two candidates the deal did not work out for them,” says Mack. Undaunted by the experience, Hau & Associates continued meeting with other companies that were referred to them by GoodAccountants.com and most recently landed a $15 million agricultural seed and chemical wholesaler which has resulted in annual billings of $50,000 for Hau. According to Sherry Reisenauer-Stillman, a partner at Hau & Associates, this one client could ultimately bring in more than a half million dollars in billings to the firm since they have committed to a long term relationship with them.
“Hau & Associates is one of our top member accounting firms,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “They’re a joy to work with because they take advantage of every marketing tool we provide our member accounting firms here at GoodAccountants.com and are what I call ‘internet ready’ as it relates to their grasp of the role of technology in today’s accounting industry,” adds Laurent. “They were among the first of our members to completely develop their GoodAccountants.com Profile Page and they never meet with any of our clients without immediately submitting feedback to us through our proprietary instant messaging platform,” explains Laurent.
The accounting firms that fully understand and take advantage of all the technology that GoodAccountants.com offers them according to Laurent, are consistently among the highest billers in her network. “Whenever we provide Hau & Associates a lead from our website they are in touch with the business owner literally within minutes after we have downloaded the information to them,” says Laurent. “Their utilization of all of the marketing tools we make available to them is making a huge difference in the number of clients they’re converting from the leads we send to them and it makes our job so much easier,” explains Stephen Mack. “When we send a profile page to Google for indexing without the accountant’s photo on it we find that page will rank lower than a profile page with a photo attached, yet some accountants still do not respond to our requests for their photo,” he adds. “We now live in the age of ‘social networking’ where people who use the Internet are accustomed to seeing whom they are interfacing with especially when it comes to entrusting someone with your financial information,” says Laurent. “If you are a financial professional and you want to gain clients through the Internet but yet you refuse to put a face on your accounting practice then you had better think again,” she adds.
Hau and Associates has billed a total of $60,000 with GoodAccountants.com in the first year of their membership and has just upgraded to the company’s $25,000 Designated Service Provider marketing program which guarantees a minimum of $75,000 in billing for the accountant.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
David Love, CPA Says He Loves GoodAccountants.com
David Love is a certified public accountant whose practice is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Three years ago he became a member of GoodAccountants.com, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service and has continued to use GoodAccountants ongoing as the primary source for generating new clients for his practice. Now a staunch believer in Internet marketing, Love says ten years ago the accounting industry was a very different world because most accountants relied almost entirely on ‘word of mouth’ as the most cost-effective way to grow their practice. According to Love, there was no real need for accountants to advertise because people weren’t so driven to the Internet to find professional service providers as they are today. However the Internet along with present economic realities have completely changed the landscape of the accounting industry and like other businesses, accountants too must now advertise to stay competitive and to keep attracting new clients to replace the ones they have lost as a result of the downturn in the economy.
The real question for most accountants remains how exactly should they approach Internet marketing where the cost to effectively advertise can run into tens of thousands of dollars each month. According to Love, the answer for him has been GoodAccountants.com. “I have realized between $30,000 and $35,000 in yearly, recurring billings from GoodAccountants.com,” says Love. “My experience as far as the quality of clients I’ve received from GoodAccountants.com has been excellent and these are people who legitimately need a good accountant and are not folks who are just price shopping,” he adds. Although Love says he has used other forms of marketing to produce leads for his accounting practice he acknowledges that GoodAccountants.com is uniquely positioned to help accountants build their practice. “There’s nothing to figure out,” says Love, referring to the turn-key system that GoodAccountants.com provides accountants nationwide through a highly sophisticated marketing platform that taps directly into all the major search engines.
Starting out with one of the company’s intermediate $5,000 marketing programs Love has recently upgraded his membership to become a Designated Service Provider which required him to invest $25,000 for which he received a $75,000 billings guarantee from GoodAccountants.com. “GoodAccountants is perfect because there is so much Internet use now and the concept of somebody going to Google or Yahoo and typing in ‘I need a good accountant’ and up comes GoodAccountants.com, I think it’s very unique marketing that they’ve come up with and I don’t think there’s anything like it,” says Love.
Although GA only offers a 3 to 1 guaranteed return on investment (ROI) on its Designated Service Provider marketing programs it does however offer a standard guarantee to every accountant who joins their nationwide network which states GA will keep advertising on behalf of the accountant until such time they have recovered their initial investment from billings to companies they retain from GA’s marketing efforts. In effect GoodAccountants.com has eliminated the risk of loss for every accountant who wishes to enter the field of Internet marketing.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Roger Bennett Earns $25,000 in Billings with GoodAccountants.com
Roger Bennett vividly recalls the day he received a phone call about a church that was looking for an accountant to do their accounting work and how puzzled he was by the fact the person contacting him was calling from Lynbrook, New York while the church was located in Old Lyme, Connecticut. “I first came in contact with GoodAccountants.com through a cold call,” says Bennett. “I picked up the phone and there was a GoodAccountants.com person on the other end,” he explains. Although calls like this are routinely screened out by his receptionist there was something about the person on the other end that made Bennett feel comfortable so he continued to listen and in little more than fifteen minutes had committed to spend $5,000 to become a member of GoodAccountants.com, a decision that has proven to be extremely prudent. Bennett has since booked $25,000 in annualized billings from clients, referred to him within months of becoming a member of the nation’s largest accountancy referral service, in exchange for his $5,000 investment.
In hindsight says Bennett it makes sense that a house of worship located in southern Connecticut would contact GoodAccountants.com to find an accountant for them just as much as it makes sense to companies all across the country when they go to any major search engine and type in the phrase; ‘I need a good accountant and the first result that comes up for them is GoodAccountants.com.
The reality is everyone looking for an accountant is ultimately searching for the same thing; a reliable, trusted source that can point them in the right direction in an industry that is highly fragmented. Given the fact that accounting services can vary dramatically from one service provider to another then why not look to a central authority so to speak that can help guide you through the maze of accounting practitioners that are out there to one that can deliver the highest quality of service. This is exactly what GoodAccountants.com does for business owners and individual taxpayers all over the country no matter where they may be located. What’s most compelling about their service is they provide real ‘live’ business consultants that work directly with the business owner throughout the entire process until they have engaged the accountant that is most suited to their business and they do it at absolutely no cost to the client. Although they’re headquartered in New York their services are internet based and can be accessed from anywhere in the world via a cell phone or computer. For business owners and individual taxpayers alike the results are amazingly rewarding; a referral to a local, qualified accounting professional who understands their business and can hit the ground running.
Roger Bennett is definitely a qualified and seasoned accounting professional having started his career with Deloitte & Touche and then operating his own practice for more than 24 years. As a result of his success with GoodAccountants.com, Bennett has upgraded to one of the company’s $25,000 marketing programs which guarantees him a $75,000 return on investment. The fact is Bennett already has a pending $12,000 audit engagement with a franchisor, also referred to him by GoodAccountants.com , which franchises investigative services for insurance companies. The question put to Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com is can her company deliver this level of success to every accountant who joins her organization. Laurent’s reply was the level of success that a particular member accountant will enjoy will vary from one accountant to another depending on a number of variables. “Sometimes we hit a brick wall and no matter how much advertising we do in certain geographical areas we do not achieve the exact same level of success as we do in other parts of the country,” says Laurent. The one thing however accountants can rely upon is the iron clad guarantee that GoodAccountants.com offers its members which is to continue marketing for them until such time they have at least recovered their initial investment.
“What’s most rewarding for me is when we get phone calls from business owners all over the country asking if their accountant is a member of our network,” says Laurent. ”This means they see us as an official clearing house for accountants,” she explains. “As long as this holds true the accountants in our network have little to worry about unlike the ones who aren’t,” adds Laurent.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
My First Client From GoodAccountants.com Is $23,000 Yearly Billing
“They called me out of the blue and asked me to join their network and I did,” says Jim Williams, a certified public accountant based in San Jose, California. Like a growing number of accountants across the country, Williams has decided to try his hand at Internet marketing as a way to attract new clients to his accounting practice by purchasing a membership with GoodAccountants.com. Within days after the phone call from Senior Business Consultant, Kristin Palapoli, Williams engaged the international construction materials company that she arranged for him to meet with, for a total of $23,000 dollars in recurring annual billings. It would become his first referral and very first client as a member of GoodAccountants.com.
“Five or six years ago, a phone call placed to an accountant during the middle of the tax season from someone offering a business client paying $23,000 in billings would have been regarded as a prank call,” says Palapoli. “Today, as a result of the radical changes the accounting industry has undergone, it is more routine for an accountant to receive a phone call from us than from a banker or lawyer that may also be a source of client referrals,” adds Palapoli.
As the nation’s largest accountancy referral service more than 10 million business owners have used GoodAccountants.com as a resource for finding local accountants. The company specializes in Internet marketing that is targeted to business owners and individual taxpayers who require the services of an accounting professional for their business or personal needs. ”The power of social networking as a marketing tool can no longer be ignored in an era where governments are being toppled by the single most important force in our lives today which is the Internet,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. ” Just as Egyptian protesters harnessed the power of Twitter to help bring down Hosni Mubarak, many accountants are using the power of the Internet in a similar way to grow their business,” she adds.
Accounting services like most everything else is something that is now predominantly searched for through the Internet which is why accountants like Jim Williams are increasingly taking advantage of the turn-key Internet platform that is afforded to them by GoodAccountants.com, which can connect them directly to dozens of new clients.
Widespread internet connectivity along with the proliferation of smart phones and computer tablets has not only changed the way in which we obtain everything ranging from books, movies, food and clothing but it has also changed the way in which we seek out professional services. A recent study conducted by BIA Kelsey, a Chantilly, Virginia based consulting firm reports that nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally. Rudder Finn, one of the world’s largest public relations firms, recently announced a new survey that reports Americans are spending an average of 2.7 hours per day on the mobile Internet – connecting socially, managing their personal finances, and even as a means for advocacy. The report goes on to state the following:
“Mobile phones have become the way people organize their lives—managing finances, connecting with friends, purchasing products—and this trend will only accelerate,” said Kathy Bloomgarden, Ruder Finn co-CEO. “The mobile phone is becoming the most powerful online device, and the faster businesses can adapt their services to harness consumer mobile intent, the more rapidly they can capitalize on understanding their customers to drive growth.”
Kristin Palapoli, Senior Business Consultant, GoodAccountants.com
“Our system allows us to directly route clients, who search the Internet daily for accounting services, to thousands of accountants all over the country,” says Palapoli. “It’s an awesome thing to see a company come onto our website and ten minutes later an accountant in our network is submitting feedback to us, through our internal messaging system, informing us they have scheduled an appointment to meet with the company,” explains Palapoli. “Then to see that scheduled appointment turn into a $10,000 or $15,000 engagement kind of blows your mind,” she adds.
As a result of the colossal shift in the way goods and services are now acquired compared to the way they were ten years ago, advertisers today no longer limit their advertising campaigns to print, radio and television but more so are targeting social networking websites as a way to get their message heard by millions of potential new customers. “When you think of the fact that brick and mortar businesses like Block Buster and Borders Book Stores are now in bankruptcy as a result of their Internet based competitors, Netflix and Amazon, it is abundantly clear that consumers have abandoned the old ways of consuming goods and services and are totally preoccupied with the Internet,” says Laurent. ”If you’re an accountant operating in this Internet Age and are relying on ‘word of mouth‘ to sustain your practice while your competition is utilizing highly sophisticated technology to attract new clients the reality is your practice will only shrink,” says Laurent. “In fact they’re probably attracting your clients right now,” she quips.
GoodAccountants.com Helps Company With IPO
Energy Edge Technologies Corporation is an eight year old energy engineering company run by Robert Holdsworth who says he has always envisioned himself one day taking a company public. Having held a series 7 general securities license with the National Association of Security Dealers (NASD) as well as numerous past managerial positions with prominent financial institutions together have provided Holdsworth a clear path to fulfilling his dream. His entrepreneurial spirit combined with a penchant for spotting market trends have provided Holdsworth the impetus to start his own company.
Long before the words ‘green energy’ became a part of popular vernacular Holdsworth realized that unbridled levels of energy consumption by large corporations would one day force them to undergo radical change. Today, Holdsworth shows companies how they can significantly cut their operating costs by reducing energy consumption through the deployment of as many as two dozen different engineering and technology solutions. For example, when the folks at 3M saw how much money they could save through cutting energy consumption by almost 30 percent in just one of their plants they immediately hired Energy Edge as consultants. The company has found its primary customer base among companies that have large energy consumption footprints.
Along with making green energy a valuable revenue stream of ’green dollars’ for some of America’s largest corporations, Robert Holdsworth has also found his greatest ally within the U.S. Government. As federal regulators turn their attention to enforcing clean energy legislation, a focal point of the Obama Administration, Energy Edge has also captured the attention of Wall Street. “By this time next month we’ll have our trading symbol for the NASDAQ,” says Holdsworth. Having already completed a private placement memorandum Energy Edge has taken the steps to join the ranks of our nation’s publicly traded companies. Below is a transcript of an Interview that was recently conducted by GoodAccountants.com with Energy Edge Technologies’ founder and CEO, Robert Holdsworth:
Question: How important is green energy technology to Americans?
Answer: First and foremost it’s critical to the cost of doing business. When we talk about green energy there are really two aspects to it; there is the green of the environment which it’s critically important that we leave the world better for our children than the way we’ve received it and then there is the green of the dollar especially in these hard economic times, anywhere that a company can reduce that bottom line cost they’re increasing their profits by the same amount, which is critical to businesses out there.
Question: When did you first come into contact with GoodAccountants.com?
Answer: As we were taking the company public we realized pretty early on that we really needed a new accounting firm that had the experience working with public companies and we looked online and found GoodAccountants.com.
Question: What role has GoodAccountants.com played with your company?
Answer: I love GoodAccountants.com because they did such a great job for us by first listening very closely to what our needs were. They studied our industry as well as our business model and were able to bring to us the perfect accounting firm that fit our needs perfectly.
Question: What do you think has made Energy Edge Technologies Corporation such a compelling story for Wall Street?
Answer: Energy Edge does whole facility energy projects for our customers where we’re able to bring to bear several different, literally more than two dozen different engineering approaches and technologies to treat the various energy consuming loads across a facility. Whether it be lighting loads, HVAC, refrigeration, production loads, water and gas systems and really the idea is to get moderate saves across those different energy consuming loads but really have the aggregate of savings add up for our customers. Typically we’re going to get anywhere from eight percent to as much as thirty percent or more in reduction of that bottom line utility bill for our customer and even better all those financials of the project; here’s what the customer is spending, here’s what we’re guaranteed to save, the project cost, the payback, the return on investment, the carbon foot print reduction, the financing terms so there’s no out-of-pocket expense for our customer, all those numbers, we guarantee them. We guarantee them in writing but more than that we also back them up with an insurance policy and the insurance policy is underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. Really the whole idea is to take the financial risk out of the buying decision for our customers. We’re very conservative and we’ve never missed our numbers yet but if there were a shortfall, instead of saving let’s say $200,000 dollars for our customer we only saved $190,000 dollars for them, if that were to happen, that $10,000 dollars shortfall, that $10,000 dollars gap is literally made up with a check from the insurance company to our customer to make them whole.
Accountants Submit Feedback About Clients Referred by GoodAccountants.com
Is GoodAccountants.com fundamentally changing the way accountants obtain their clients?
Six years ago on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2005 GoodAccountants.com officially launched its website. The main purpose of the site was to attract record numbers of business owners and individual taxpayers who were seeking to engage the services of an accountant. Fueled by a multi-million dollar television and radio advertising campaign, millions of business owners and individual taxpayers were successfully driven to the GoodAccountants.com website within months after its launch. However, it would not be until the company unveiled its internet advertising prowess, according to Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com, that the accountants in her network would begin converting clients in significant numbers. “It wasn’t easy six years ago trying to convince accountants that our website could attract clients for them,” says Laurent. “‘I get all of my clients by word of mouth,’ is what most of the accountants would say to us in the early days when we first began speaking to them about joining our network,” explains Laurent.
Today, GoodAccountants.com has thousands of accountants in almost every city across America that are members of its network largely because the ‘age of the Internet’ has made the company’s services extremely relevant to millions of business owners, not-for-profit organizations and individual taxpayers, as well as accountants alike. “Finding the right accountant for your business or personal needs is not as easy as it may sound, at least it wasn’t until we came along,” says Laurent. So how are accountants finding and retaining the new breed of clients that are shopping the internet for just about everything including their accountants? Judging from a review of the GoodAccountants.com internal messaging system which connects its customer service reps directly to its network of accountants in the field, it seems that the company may be impacting the accounting industry in a very significant way. When accountants in its network wish to submit feedback about clients that have been referred to them or share their experience about a recent appointment, they simply log into the company’s proprietary messaging system and submit their comments. Below are four such comments recently submitted by four different accountants who are members of GoodAccountants.com.
Screenshot from GoodAccountants.com's feedback panel (click image to enlarge)
Upon examining the comments that have been submitted by these accountants we are able to gain an appreciation for the kind of meaningful referral activity that is ongoing at GoodAccountants.com. One accountant places his potential billings at between $3,000 and $4,000 dollars to a single prospect referred to him by GoodAccountants.com while another places his initial billings to the client referred to him at around $1,400 dollars which he indicates could potentially double. The conclusion of this writer is if four accountants in succession submitted this series of feedback comments within the span of a half-hour then GoodAccountants.com is definitely making a significant impact on the way in which accountants are obtaining their clients and increasingly will continue obtaining their clients given the ongoing proliferation of internet access through smart phones and computer tablets. ”More and more business owners and individual taxpayers are turning to the internet in record numbers to search for and retain accountants who are technologically predisposed to service this burgeoning market share,” says Laurent. “We can within a matter of minutes give an accountant the technological capability to capture new clients from the internet through our turn-key system once they become members of our network,” explains Laurent.
As new technologies such as cloud computing continue to move the industry forward accountants are increasingly turning to the internet to retain clients as well as to deliver their accounting services. Widespread internet connectivity has made it possible for GoodAccountants.com to deliver paying customers to thousand of accountants across the country through a sophisticated, high-tech referral system that provides every type of accounting service imaginable. From tax preparation, investment advisory, IRS representation, compilations, reviews and audits, business owners and individual taxpayers across America are now able to connect within a matter of minutes with competent and friendly accountants in their locale, through GoodAccountants.com.
“Our name, GoodAccountants.com, is a misnomer,” says Laurent. ”People assume that we are an association of accountants looking for business which is not the case at all but on the contrary we are an association of business owners looking for good accountants,” says Laurent. “It is the many thousands of business owners and individual taxpayers that use our website as a resource tool to find accountants that have truly become our most valuable commodity,” explains Laurent.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Here’s How To Get Six Months Of Free Business Referrals For Your Accounting Practice From GoodAccountants.com
December 19, 2010 by Insider
Filed under Promotions
For any accountant who joins its nationwide network between now and the end of the year GoodAccountants.com is offering six free months of business referrals. The offer expires on December 31, 2010.
For someone like Richard Hayes, a certified public accountant who joined GoodAccountants.com earlier this year, six free months of business referrals could mean as much as an additional $80,000 dollars in new billing which is the exact amount he landed from two clients that were referred to him by the nation’s largest accountancy referral service during his first month as a member.
Hayes, like scores of other accountants across the country, swears his experience with GoodAccountants.com is unprecedented in his more than 22 years as an accountant despite the fact that he has tried many different ways to expand his client base. Yet Hayes’ experience is not an isolated one and the phenomenal return on investment he says he’s realized is being echoed by countless other accountants across the country that are members of GoodAccountants.com’s nationwide network. Robert Berney, a certified public accountant and MBA who is based in Miami, Florida says the particular high-tech style of marketing that is utilized by GoodAccountants.com has worked very effectively for him. Sherri Thurman, a CPA who practices in Oklahoma City says she expects to earn more than $200,000 dollars over the next ten years from just one client she received from GoodAccountants.com within a week after purchasing her membership for only $5,000 dollars.
“Has every single accountant who has joined our network landed $80,000 dollars in new billing engagements from their $5,000 dollars investment in a GoodAccountants.com membership,” quips Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “Of course not,” she proclaims as she answers her own question. “However, we’re working on it,” she adds. “I want every accountant in our network to make back three to four times their investment at a minimum and we’re working feverishly day and night to make that a reality,” says Laurent.
The key to Laurent’s strategy is to utilize every facet of internet marketing that is available including tapping into social networking websites such as YouTube and Facebook. According to Laurent her company has recently undertaken a massive effort to develop a profile page for every single accountant in their network which includes a photograph of the accountant along with a videotaped message describing the list of services the accountant performs. These profile pages are not only served up to the business owners and high-net-worth individuals that frequent the GoodAccountants.com website but are also disseminated across social networking websites so that her accountants get more exposure across the Internet. “Today when someone is looking for an accountant they don’t just want a phone book listing with a name and phone number on it they want to see and hear from the accountant in his or her own words as to what they can do to help cut their tax bill or expand their business,” says Laurent. “When our customer service reps are on the phone talking with prospective clients that call in on our toll free number, we often email the accountant’s profile page so that our website user can become familiar with the accountant we’re referring to them even before they meet with them,” explains Laurent.
Although the question remains unanswered as to whether or not the Internet can consistently produce enough business to satisfy tens of thousands of accountants across the country, it does appear that the folks at GoodAccountants.com are burning the midnight oil in their quest to change how accounting firms obtain their clients. “We give every accountant in our network the ability to receive a business lead from us in real-time and to actually speak with the business owner over the telephone within minutes, sometimes even while they’re still on our website submitting their information,” says Laurent. “Our objective is to turn every serious internet surfer that is looking for a good local accountant into a paying customer for one of our members within a matter of minutes,” she adds.
Laurent’s strategy appears to be working based on feedback from scores of accountants in her network. With the advent of cloud computing along with widespread internet connectivity it appears that accountants across the country that are members of the GoodAccountants.com network are experiencing something that has never been experienced in the history of the accounting industry: widespread conversions of web surfers into clients. Upon closer examination of her company’s GA Access platform, which can within minutes deliver to the accountant such information as the business owner’s website address, number of employees and current accounting budget, it becomes evident why so many GoodAccountants.com member accountant’s are landing clients. “We now track how quickly the accountant contacts the business owner after we transfer the business owner’s information to them” says Laurent. “Speed is everything in this digital age in which we live and particularly when it comes to web surfers who we want to stop in their tracks before they can move on to another referral source other than GoodAccountants.com,” explains Laurent. “If a business owner receives a phone call directly from an accountant within minutes after leaving our website there is a pretty good chance that accountant will get their business,” says Laurent. “But not all of our members appreciate our technology and still want to be contacted only after someone in our customer service department has talked with the business owner and prescreened the lead before it is presented to them and that’s okay too,” says Laurent. “They want us to prescreen each client for them although this approach may not provide the fastest delivery time in terms of getting the accountant together with the business owner,” explains Laurent.
Upon examining the company’s website tracking information it is evident that thousands of accountants across the country are spending considerable time logged onto GoodAccountants.com’s website retrieving information about prospective clients that have been assigned to them. “Advertisers who want to reach our network of accountants are taking notice of how much time our members spend logged onto our website where they retrieve and manage their leads,” says Laurent. “This alone tells me what we are doing is something that is very unique to the accounting industry,” she adds. “With GA Access we have the capability of converting a web surfer into a paying customer for an accountant in our network in less than 15 minutes,” says Laurent. “For an advertiser we have the ability to put their message in front of an accountant who spends as much as an hour or two each day on our website,” she adds.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Sherri Thurman Says She Will Earn $210,000 From $5,000 Investment In GoodAccountants.com Membership
Sherri Thurman operates a small CPA firm located in Oklahoma City, a part of Middle America where uncharacteristic to the national average the unemployment rate remains a mere single digit at around six-percent. “Although the rest of the country may be experiencing economic difficulty things aren’t too bad here,” says Thurman. Sure some businesses have shut down and the affects of the national economy can still be felt in many ways, overall says Thurman she has a lot to be thankful for. One of the things for which she’s extremely grateful is the telephone call she received one morning from Al Chisolm, a Senior Consultant with GoodAccountants.com. This one phone call she projects will earn her more than $210,000 over the next 10 years, the minimal period she says she will retain the $8 million dollar, oilfield equipment company that she has engaged from GoodAccountants.com. “This client has contracted to pay me between $20,000 and $25,000 dollars per year,” says Thurman. The bottom line says Thurman is she will earn $210,000 dollars from a $5,000 dollar investment in a GoodAccountants.com membership. “I don’t know how Al got my name but I’m sure glad he called me,” she chuckles.
“If you think about it I’ll keep this company for ten years which is $210,000 worth of billing all for my $5,000 initial investment to GoodAccountants.com which is a pretty good return on investment,” says Thurman as she reflects on her new client. Looking to grow her accounting practice by $200,000 in new annualized billings in just the next few years Thurman says she feels fortunate that she was contacted by GoodAccountants.com. ”I received a phone call one morning out of the blue from GoodAccountants and they told me they had a client that was about an hour from Oklahoma City for whom they were searching for an accountant and wanted to know if I would be interested in joining their national network,” explains Thurman. After hanging up her telephone Thurman says she immediately went to her computer and conducted a Google search using the words “find an accountant” and was surprised when GoodAccountants.com’s website came up at the very top of the list. A half hour later Thurman says she was back on the telephone signing up for a six-month membership with GoodAccountants, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service. The following week Thurman met with the owners of the $8 million dollar oilfield services company with 65 employees and immediately engaged them. “I walked out of the meeting with their previous year’s tax return which needed to be corrected along with some other work I bought back from my very first meeting with them,” says Thurman.
“The difference with meeting a client referred by GoodAccountants.com is they are highly motivated to retain someone right away because they are actively looking and they’re unhappy with their current situation which is why they’ve contacted GoodAccountants in the first place,” explains Thurman. “A few years back we decided we were going to try to increase our business and we hired a telemarketer and we hired a salesman and we bought some lists and we spent a lot of money over a year paying them and today we have nothing to show for it.” says Thurman. ”We didn’t get any good clients from it and basically we just spent a lot of money,” she adds. “With GoodAccountants.com you already have a pretty captive market because it’s people that are already looking for an accountant and you’re not calling people up trying to convince them to change from somebody they like or from somebody their currently using but instead these are people that are actively looking for an accountant,” says Thurman.
According to Thurman the accounting profession has undergone significant changes over the last several years which have made marketing an absolute necessity for accountants all across the country. An industry that once relied on word-of-mouth almost exclusively as a source for new clients has now become one that is significantly dependent upon the Internet and GoodAccountants.com.